Beggar to Beggar Cried
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPTMR slash. AU. Harry has been raised from the time he was five with full knowledge of what he was, a Horcrux, and how someday he would need to die to avenge his parents. Thus, when he finds Tom Riddle's diary in his second year, he recognizes it. Horcrux speaks to Horcrux, a game of persuasion and manipulation. Twoshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Beggar to Beggar Cried  
 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Content Notes:** Angst, violence, manipulation, underage (no actual sex, but sexual moments and thoughts), suicidal thoughts, AU  
 **Wordcount:** This part 5500  
 **Pairings:** Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, one-sided Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley  
 **Summary:** AU. Harry has been raised from the time he was five with full knowledge of what he was, a Horcrux, and how someday he would need to die to avenge his parents. Thus, when he finds Tom Riddle's diary in his second year, he recognizes it. Horcrux speaks to Horcrux, a game of persuasion and manipulation.  
 **Author's Notes:** The title of this story comes from W. B. Yeats's poem "Beggar to Beggar Cried." This is a dark fic, the sixth of my July Celebration stories for this year, and will be posted in two parts.

 **Beggar to Beggar Cried**

Harry takes the slender little black book out of his bag once he's alone, with the curtains drawn tight around his bed in the Gryffindor boys' bedroom, and looks at it.

He has felt something strange and off for months now, around Ginny mostly, but also just in the school. That's why it's taken him so long to find it. On the one hand, he wanted to track down the strangeness. On the other hand, there was the voice speaking in the walls, and the Heir of Slytherin business, and although he knows the voice in the walls must be a snake, no one has found a way to stop it or shut it up. Harry has warned Professor Dumbledore, and that's all he can do. He's under strict orders not to tell anyone about Horcruxes, or the reason he's a Parselmouth. He wouldn't even have showed people that he was a Parselmouth if he'd been able to think of another way to save Justin.

Harry sighs and shuts his eyes. He's already talked with Professor Dumbledore about that, and Professor Dumbledore has said he doesn't have to feel sorry for it. It was unfortunate that people would know, but none of them would suspect.

And that's the important thing.

Harry runs his hand down the book's spine and then nods. Yes, there's the same feeling from it that he gets from his scar when it's night and everything is quiet and he puts his hand on his forehead and really concentrates. The diary is a Horcrux.

The odd thing is that Harry doesn't know why anyone would make a _book_ into a Horcrux. He can see why someone like him, who can move around and talk and run away, might be useful. But a book would just sit on a shelf somewhere, and it might not get opened for years. What was Voldemort thinking?

Then Harry shakes his head. Sometimes he thinks like that. Professor Dumbledore says it's only natural. Harry is just twelve, and not used to things. He may be different from other people, but he's a lot like them, too. Harry _will_ keep forgetting that he's an accidental Horcrux, and that Voldemort probably liked the ones that didn't move around on their own. It means they will still be where he put them when he goes back for them.

In the meantime, there's a Horcrux to figure out.

It seems most likely that you would communicate with a book by writing in it. Harry opens the book and picks up a quill. The pages are perfectly smooth and blank, but that doesn't surprise Harry. The Horcrux would probably want to trap somebody, to grow stronger. Professor Dumbledore has warned Harry about that danger.

Harry hesitates. Shouldn't he take _this_ Horcrux to Professor Dumbledore? He knows the professor is slowly collecting all of them. He isn't going to destroy them yet, because Voldemort is still a spirit and they don't know what effect that would have on him. It might even make him come back another way, a way that isn't under Professor Dumbledore's control.

But then Harry shakes his head. He does want to talk to this one, just to see what it's like, what it'll say.

And…he might be like other people, but he isn't the same, exactly. He wants to talk to someone like him, for once. It's probably the only chance he'll ever have to do it. Professor Dumbledore has figured out that an important ring is a Horcrux, but it isn't like a ring can talk back to you.

It'll only be once. Then he'll take the diary and give it to Professor Dumbledore the way he's supposed to.

 _Hello,_ he writes on the book's page, and watches the ink disappear.

There's a little jump in the book's magic. Harry smiles until he starts wondering if that means the book can sense him back. He bites his lip. He doesn't want _that_. The book might try to kill him. Can a Horcrux be jealous of another Horcrux?

 _Hello,_ appeared on the book's page while he was debating. Harry looks back down at it, hesitates, and then scribbles recklessly.

 _My name is Harry Potter. What's yours?_

The words seem to take longer to disappear this time, and Harry has to let go of his breath in a painful rush. It feels like the book has been sitting on his chest.

Sure, it's small and probably wouldn't be that heavy. But Harry bets this book could be heavier if it _wanted_ to.

 _My name is Tom Riddle, and this is my diary._

Harry closes his eyes a little. He's right. Professor Dumbledore told him once that that was Voldemort's mortal name, and it's all right to call Voldemort that, because he'll hate it, and getting Voldemort angry is okay.

He should close the book and take it to the Headmaster's office right now.

But it's still the only Horcrux that will ever be able to talk back to him, so Harry writes, _What is it like, being a Horcrux?_

It's his imagination, he knows, but the diary seems to shake and then still under his hands. It's _not_ his imagination that the book's magic spikes again. Harry sits, watching it. He wonders what kind of defenses this Horcrux has. Professor Dumbledore had to be really careful when he was getting the ring Horcrux. Can this book snap shut on Harry's finger and give him a paper-cut that makes him bleed to death or something?

That makes Harry smile. He's not afraid of death. If he dies, then the Horcrux dies, too, and then his parents will be avenged. And Professor Dumbledore has told him that he'll see his parents in the afterlife. After years of looking at their faces in picture albums—seven years, since Professor Dumbledore took him from the Dursleys—Harry is ready to see them in person.

 _Where did you learn that word?_

Harry rolls his eyes a little. He supposes he should have realized Voldemort would lie and deny it, but it's a little tiresome.

 _I've known it since I was five years old. I'm a Horcrux, too. Your older self made me on the night he tried to defeat me when I was a baby. Professor Dumbledore still doesn't know what happened, not for certain, but apparently his soul was so unstable from making multiple Horcruxes that a small piece of it split off and attached itself to me. So that's what I am, that's what you are, and we both have to die to get rid of Voldemort. I just want to know what it's like, being you. I know what it's like being me._

* * *

Tom has not felt fear in so long that it takes him endless moments to realize what the winter wind rushing past him is. He certainly never includes memories of winter among the ones he dwells in in the diary.

He controls the urge to burst out of the diary and try to drain this Harry Potter's life-force right away. He doesn't have enough magic left from draining little Ginny to do that. Instead, he tries to reach out with senses that have atrophied in the years since the diary did nothing but sit on a shelf in Malfoy Manor. He tries to sense the power of the wizard writing in him, instead of simply that he _is_ a wizard.

The magic sings to him, surprisingly easy to sense. An hour ago, Tom would have dismissed that as just a sign that Harry Potter is strong. From all that Ginny has babbled about him, he must be.

But there's a dark aftertaste to the magic that makes Tom shudder and slump back against the memory of a Transfiguration desk. Yes, that is magic like his.

 _His,_ the diary's, not magic like Lord Voldemort's. It's difficult for Tom to think of himself as the same as his creator, after so long a separation.

The boy is not lying.

Revelations burst like fireworks in his mind as Tom lets the memory dissolve and simply stands in darkness. Dumbledore _knows._ His creator is so unstable that he can create Horcruxes accidentally. There are more objects like Tom, whereas he always thought he would be the only one. Yes, now and then his creator had a thought of making many, but that always seemed so self-evidently stupid to Tom that he dismissed it as a childish fantasy.

There must be a way to stop this. There must be a way to survive. He may not be Voldemort, but he's Tom Riddle, who found a way out of his every dilemma at Hogwarts.

 _It's boring, being a book,_ he finally responds, when he realizes the boy is just sitting there holding the diary, instead of closing it. _I can't communicate with anyone except when people write in me. And the world inside here is made of my memories, which I've seven over and over again in the last fifty years. What's it like being you?_

 _Oh, it's being a boy. You were a boy, too, so you probably know about that._

 _I didn't mean that, Harry,_ Tom says, and wonders if he can project reassurance and soothing feelings through the words. Normally he wouldn't bother trying, simply relying on the book's innate defensive magic to ensnare his writer, but it's different with another Horcrux. _You know what you are. You know you have to die. What's it like, living with the foreknowledge of your own death?_

* * *

Harry blinks, and wonders for a second why Voldemort would ask that question. Then he shrugs. It doesn't really matter. Voldemort can't _do_ anything. Even if he's been controlling someone so that the Chamber of Secrets will open, Harry has him now, and he'll take him to Dumbledore right away after he writes this conversation out.

 _It's hard, sometimes. But I know that I'm going to see my parents when I die. You killed them the night you made me a Horcrux._

 _And seeing two people you've never known is enough for you? Enough reason to die?_

 _I can't live._ We _can't live_ , Harry says, and underlines the word as hard as he can, wondering if it will make ink rain on Voldemort's head. _We'll be keeping him alive._

 _But why should I care about that? Why shouldn't I want to live as hard and as richly as I can?_ There's a long pause, but Voldemort's writing starts again before Harry write a retort. _Why don't you want to live as hard and as richly as you can?_

Harry says nothing. He knows the reasons, but he would feel stupid writing them down. Voldemort would just mock them.

It's reasons like Dumbledore coming to the Dursleys' house when Harry was five, and taking him aside, and explaining, quietly, the story of magic and his parents' death for the first time. He had to work harder to make Harry understand the concept of a Horcrux. Harry was only five, after all. And he doesn't think that he's a genius or anything. Hermione would have got it right away.

But after Dumbledore talked about the Horcrux, it made sense. Harry has a slight negative energy all around him. It takes really determined people to break through it. It's why he has so few friends; only Ron and Hermione being _incredibly_ determined let them get through. And it's why the Dursleys hated him.

It's why he has to die. It's not fair, no, but it's the way it is.

 _Harry?_

Harry shuts the book and tucks it under his pillow. He doesn't know who abandoned it in the first place, but he doesn't want it going anywhere.

* * *

Tom doesn't know what happened, but it seems like a long time until Harry writes back. He's got used to the rhythms of day and night again, since Ginny started writing in the diary. He can, if he concentrates hard, feel himself being carried around and now and then set down on a desk or on something soft that feels like the bottom of a bag.

It's infuriating to know that Harry isn't treating the diary with dignity. The one reassurance of it is that he hasn't taken the book to Dumbledore yet. Tom knows he would just be shut away in a desk or cabinet until he was destroyed.

Tom waits until he thinks Harry probably won't write back again, and then he extends his magic as far as he can outside the book. It makes his inner black-and-white world bow and tremble, on the verge of breaking. Tom's not sure, because he's never pushed himself this far before, but he thinks it might make him actually die and bleed black ink all over the pages.

Luckily, he doesn't have to push as far as he would with anyone else. Harry is too similar to him. Tom catches hold of the faint, churning Dark magic from his body and aura and pulls himself into Harry's dreams.

* * *

"Hello, Harry."

Harry rolls over slowly. He appears to be on his bed in the Gryffindor boys' bedroom, but he knows that isn't true. It's too dark and quiet, and a handsome teenage boy bends over him, his dark eyes almost glowing.

Harry isn't afraid, though. He doesn't think Tom can get control of him. He can't hurt Harry. And if he kills him…

He's only killing a Horcrux. A part of Voldemort.

"Hello," Harry says, and sits up.

Tom looks him over slowly. He wears Slytherin robes, and he's taller than Harry's ever going to get. Harry sits with his hands in his lap, looking at him. Try as he might, he can't feel any separate magic from another Horcrux. Maybe it's because they're so close to each other in the dream.

"You're so _small_ ," Tom says. He sounds shocked.

"Yes, my relatives starved me before Professor Dumbledore took me away to live at Hogwarts," Harry agrees.

Tom sits down on a chair that appears from nowhere, and waves his wand to light a fire that likewise appears from nowhere. Harry watches him critically. So far, he's not really scary or evil.

"They did that, and you can still defend Muggles?"

"I don't think a lot about Muggles." It's true. Harry still remembers the Dursleys, but they feel more like a dream or a nightmare now. "I'm thinking about dying to defend all the people in the wizarding world from you."

"Surely you can see that I'm not Voldemort."

"You don't look much like him from last year, no."

"Last _year_?"

"When I defeated him and he made the Horcrux, he turned into a wraith. He was possessing one of the professors last year so that he could sneak into the school and steal the Philosopher's Stone."

Tom pauses. "Why was the Philosopher's Stone here?"

"Professor Dumbledore was hiding it in Hogwarts to lure Voldemort here."

Tom leans forwards and speaks in a soft, rapid, convincing voice. "Harry, you ought to be able to see what's really going on here. Dumbledore made mistakes. He's told you that you have to die, but you don't have to. He set up a plot to lure my—elder self here, and he did it in a school full of _children_ , where anyone could have been hurt. He made me go back to the orphanage where I lived every summer, even though I told him again and again that I would rather stay to do menial labor in Hogwarts. _He's_ the enemy, not my elder self."

Harry just sighs. He supposes it makes him stupid, but he can't even _follow_ all of Tom's arguments. "No, it doesn't. It means that he doesn't want me or you or any of the other Horcruxes to hurt other people. He doesn't want Voldemort to hurt them, either."

"Why would _you_ hurt them?"

"The Horcrux in me poisons people. It turns them against me. That's why my relatives kept me in a cupboard and didn't feed me enough. And that's why a lot of people have decided that I'm evil the minute they found out I was a Parselmouth."

Tom's quiet, except for the way he clenches his fists. Then he says, "Why would you be—that's the most ridiculous theory I've ever heard."

"Really?" Harry looks at him. "Horcruxes _do_ poison people. Professor Dumbledore found one that was guarded by a powerful curse. And you were reaching out and controlling someone here, weren't you? Making them open the Chamber of Secrets? That means you were poisoning their mind and spirit."

"Big words for a little boy," Tom whispers.

"Horcrux."

Tom just stares at him, his face slowly tilting as if he's trying to balance a book that keeps sliding off his head. "You really mean that, don't you? You think that you're evil. A boy, not a Horcrux."

Harry kicks his feet up and lies on the bed. It's oddly comfortable. He supposes it's because he doesn't have to worry about Tom getting hurt or twisted by the magic he carries around inside him. "Professor Dumbledore told me that I'm not the same child my parents loved, not really. My mum died for me before the Horcrux happened. You—I mean, the Voldemort-you—killed my mum with the Killing Curse before you—I mean, the Voldemort-you—turned your wand on me. Then the Horcrux happened. So before that I was innocent. Now I'm not. The boy my mum died for isn't really alive anymore."

Tom turns pale for some reason. Harry wonders if it bothers him, to hear Harry talk about killing. Harry doesn't know why. His mind has been working on the puzzle of the Chamber, and he's pretty sure that Tom must have been created when Voldemort killed Moaning Myrtle. So there's death in him right from the beginning.

Harry can see why he would be afraid to die, and not want to, but he shouldn't be so _shocked_ by it.

* * *

 _Dumbledore's convinced him of that. I'm dealing with a fanatic._

But Tom refuses to give up. For one thing, it's not in him. He'll keep fighting for survival until someone actually manages to destroy him.

For another, he thinks that innate will to survive might be in Harry, too, whether it's his or the Horcrux's.

For a third…

"If you really believe that, why haven't you given me to Dumbledore yet?"

Harry flinches. He must have been wondering that himself. Tom pounces on the weakness as quickly as he can.

"You think I'm evil. You think _you're_ evil. Which is ridiculous, by the way." Tom scans the boy from head to foot. Other than the curse scar on his forehead, there's no outer sign of the Horcrux. He's wearing a Gryffindor tie, and his hair is tousled and his face flushed from sleep. He couldn't look more innocent if he _tried_. "Why not give me to Dumbledore so he can destroy our evil? For that matter, why are you still alive?"

Harry hesitates again. Tom leans forwards and takes a gamble. He reaches out and catches one of Harry's hands. If he believes that rot about the Horcrux being evil and poisonous to others, then he won't be used to being touched. It's harder to ignore or dismiss a person touching you, too.

Tom isn't prepared for the rush of pleasure and compassion that spins through him like a torrent, making his mouth fall open as he gasps. Harry flushes bright red and snatches his hand back. Tom stares at him and forgets the arguments he was going to make.

 _Is that what's it like, when Horcrux touches Horcrux? It's not like I was ever near another one before this to know._

"What did you do?" Harry whispers. His voice is as powerful as a shout in the silent, darkened room that Tom supposes must be a room shared by four other Gryffindor boys, based on the number of beds. The fire flares for a second and then falls back.

That only confirms it, for Tom. Harry's magic is playing along with his, making his breath come swift and short. The torrent of sensation died the minute Harry's hand left his, but he can still remember it. It's the first _physical_ sensation he's felt since he went into the diary.

"It's not me," Tom says as calmly as he can. "It's us in contact. Have you touched another Horcrux before?"

"No." Harry lifts his head, eyes for once bright with defiance of his fate. "But I touched the diary, and I didn't feel anything like that."

"The diary is only an outer case for my inner essence, not the essence itself," Tom says shortly. His mouth is dry with excitement, and he can feel that, too. He can feel the warmth of the fire. Everything suddenly feels as if he's already escaped from the diary, as if he already has a body back.

 _Merlin._ He can't kill Harry, and he can't let his older self kill him. What happens if he never feels that again?

He stands up and moves a foot towards Harry. Harry only watches him with suspicious eyes. He doesn't yield an inch as Tom sits down on the bed, and Tom finds himself glad of that when he takes Harry's hand again.

Harry gasps and closes his eyes. A steady blush creeps its way up his cheeks. Tom lowers his head and draws Harry close, wrapping his arms around him. Now his body feels like a candle flame of pleasure and happiness and acceptance.

 _When was the last time I was truly happy?_

"This is only happening because we're both evil," Harry mutters, almost inaudibly, when Tom chooses to pay attention to him again. "The Horcrux repels most normal people and makes them feel hatred towards me. So it makes sense that it would feel good with another Horcrux, something else that can—"

Tom chuckles, cutting him off. He gathers Harry closer, into his lap, and says into his ear, delighting even in the same brush of breath against Harry's ear, "Harry, why are you still alive? What justification did Dumbledore give you?"

Harry fights his eyes open. "You should call him Professor Dumbledore."

"I'll do that if it makes you happy," Tom agrees complacently, sliding his hand deep into the boy's hair. He groans as it brushes past his fingers, as he feels the flat, ordinary, _blessed_ existence of Harry's scalp under his fingers, as the happiness edges towards something more like joy. "What did Professor Dumbledore say when you asked him?"

Harry stares at him open-mouthed. Tom shivers and lies back on the pillows Harry occupied at first. Harry perforce comes with him, until they're lying face-to-face, with their lips only a feather's length apart.

"Tell me," Tom says. "Please."

* * *

Harry doesn't _understand._ He doesn't think anyone's touched him like this since his parents, and he really can't remember them. It feels better than Hermione's hugs, better than Ron pounding him on the back after a Quidditch game, better than flying.

He never thought he would say that.

Harry shudders and manages to get back a little bit of control. "He says—he takes me around Britain, you know, so I can see the wizarding world and the people I'm going to die to save. He introduced me to goblins and centaurs and said—Voldemort would kill them all." He doesn't _want_ to keep gasping like this, but Tom's hand is moving absently up and down his chest, and it feels like trails of fire are following it. "I meet people and their children. I walk down Diagon Alley. I've lived at Hogwarts for seven years. I know—I love it here. It's home."

"It is."

Tom's voice is so soft that Harry starts. Dumbledore never told him that Voldemort thought of Hogwarts as home. Like Harry does.

Harry pushes the thought aside, though, because this isn't Voldemort. So Tom is different. "And he doesn't want to try and kill me and you and the others until he figures out a way to do it all at once. He thinks that maybe Voldemort-you would sense it if he started killing us early."

"Not much can harm a Horcrux, that's true." Tom goes silent and pulls Harry close, into his chest. Harry just lies there. He doesn't know what to do, what to say. It's true what he told Tom, that he only feels this good because it's a reversal of the way the Horcrux _usually_ makes people feel.

"And tell me," Tom says after enough time has passed that Harry's not sure how much it is, "do you want to die?"

"I know I have to."

"That's not what I asked. Do _you_ want to die?"

"The part of me that doesn't want to doesn't matter. Because that part's the Horcrux, and as long as it's alive, then the murderer of my parents is alive."

"Still not what I asked for," Tom murmurs, and withdraws his arms, taking away enough of that delicious heat that Harry opens his mouth to mourn it. Then he closes his mouth again. How can he mourn something he's had for—well, an hour at most? Tom tips Harry's chin up, his fingers firmly in place on the pulse of his throat, and smiles at him. "Do _you_ want to die?"

Harry opens his mouth, and Tom continues, voice flowing like silk, the way Dumbledore told him Voldemort's voice would flow. "There must be a part of you that's not just the Horcrux. Otherwise, why would Professor Dumbledore bother discussing his plans with you? Why would he take you to visit people under the assumption that you could care for them? Find _that_ part of you. Do you want to die?"

Harry shudders. Nightmares are coming to life inside his head, nightmares he's had for years.

Of dying and _not_ meeting his parents. Of drifting in darkness forever. Of finding out it was all for nothing. Of waking up and finding out he's still at the Dursleys, and being a wizard and a Horcrux and someone who can do something great by dying to defeat evil was the dream.

"I don't think you do," Tom breathes, staring into his eyes.

Harry looks away. "But what _good_ does it do for me to want to live?" he bursts out, the words he's battled his desires and his dreams with so many times. "I can't. Because then Voldemort stays alive. And I don't want _him_ to live, either."

"What about if you cared less about him living than about whether _you_ lived?"

"But that's selfish. Professor Dumbledore, he said—"

"Is it selfish for the children and the families he showed you to want to live? To want to feel the sun on your face and taste hot chocolate in your mouth? Why did he introduce you to all those families and children, if it's so selfish to want to live?"

Harry brings a hand to his forehead, to his scar. He needs to feel the source of his difference from other people and concentrate on the evil magic. If he doesn't do that, then he's not sure, he doesn't know what's going to—

But Tom catches his fingers and _kisses them_. Harry just stares at him with his mouth open. It's so far from anything he thought could happen to him.

"We're different, yes," Tom agrees with a dark intensity, and he pulls Harry closer. "We're Horcruxes, yes. That's _different_. But that's no reason for us to die just because Professor Dumbledore says so. Or because Voldemort says so. He intended for me to remain in a book for the rest of my life. A _book_." Tom shudders, and his voice deepens. "It could easily have driven me mad. I don't matter to him except as a way of extending his life. If I get a body back, the way I'm trying to do, he'll hunt me, oppose me, kill me if he can. Why do we need to remain under the control of _either_ of them? Why can't we go away and leave them to destroy each other if that's what they want?"

Harry has never heard an argument so compelling. Maybe it's only compelling because it's another Horcrux making it, maybe because he's evil, maybe because he resents Dumbledore more than he knows. But he does shake his head and try to pull himself back to solid ground.

"But Voldemort wants to take over the world. How do I know you won't do that if—"

" _He_ wants to take over the world," Tom interrupts. "Do you know why he made me?"

"To escape death."

Tom nods. "Insomuch as I _am_ him, my desire is to live. To survive. I was making Ginny Weasley open the Chamber of Secrets, yes. But what matters more to me is living. If Professor Dumbledore has figured out a way to destroy the Horcruxes, then I need to escape that. I'll go as far away as I can, once I have a body, and live that way."

Harry sucks in a sharp breath. So it _was_ Ginny. He's wondered. Sometimes, the way she stared at him was disturbing, not the way anyone should look at a Horcrux.

"But you could go on your own. You don't need me."

* * *

 _It's working. Oh, God, it's working._

Tom clutches Harry so close that it feels as if their magic is melding, sliding into each other's, like overlapping pages. Tom closes his eyes and speaks as honestly as he can, the same honesty that made him give up Ginny's name a minute ago.

"I think we should go together. I've never touched anyone else like this and felt this, you know. I didn't know that I knew how to be _happy_ until today. And I might forget if you don't come with me. You want to be good? You want to change the world? Come with me. Remind me of what happiness is."

"Professor Dumbledore said Voldemort was never happy."

"Maybe he isn't. I don't know." Tom forces his eyes open and stares at him. " _I'm_ happy right now."

It's the perfect bait, perfect because it's absolutely and one hundred percent true. Tom knows he won't get this with anyone else. Even if he finds another Horcrux, there's no guarantee it would talk with him. Or feel the way Harry does. All the others would probably be shards of an older Voldemort, the one who wants to take over the world and has forgotten what survival means.

"And I'm—I can make you feel that way."

Tom brushes the back of his hand down Harry's cheek, and listens to their twinned gasps. "Exactly. You're the only one who can remind me of what it's like. You can keep another Voldemort from walking the world."

"That doesn't do anything about the one who killed my parents."

Tom only smiles and cocks his head. "Dumbledore has figured out lots of things, hasn't he? He can come up with a way to defeat my elder self. If he's a wraith right now, then it would be easier than ever to trap him. Maybe that's even what he was trying to do with the Philosopher's Stone last year," he adds generously. He can afford generosity, with Harry all but melting in front of him. "But _we_ don't have to be part of it."

Harry's trembling, his eyes shut tight. "I always thought I was going to die."

It's time for Tom to back off. He's planted the seed. Now he can only hope it flowers. Chastely, he kisses Harry's cheek, although the flare of pleasure, as strong as the Cruciatus in the opposite direction, makes it hard to stay chaste. "I know. Think about it. Get used to, maybe, living."

He pulls back from the dream, fades back into the diary, and adds, "But always remember that it's _your_ choice. I'm still just a book."

It's agony to return to that book, to remember what he's been missing. But at least he can conjure the memory and play it in front of him, not exhausted by doing it or making it, because he's drawn on the magic of another Horcrux.

When he is finished, he leans back on a conjured bed and closes his eyes.

He was made to survive. But he'd forgotten what life was really like.

Even if Harry somehow overcomes the temptation and decides to die and gives the diary to Dumbledore, Tom is going to hold onto the memory of life as he goes to his death.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for the reviews! This is the second, and last, part of the story.

Harry sits on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, and watches the sunrise playing over the stones. He hasn't spent a lot of time here, but it's the only place he could think of to go where he would be completely alone.

He closes his eyes and feels the sun on his face, the way Tom was talking about. He can hear the soft crackle of frost on the grass as Hagrid tromps across it. There are branches rustling and clacking against each other in the Forbidden Forest. If he turns his head, he can hear the soft hoots and cackles from the owls in the Owlery.

All things he'll never hear or see or feel again if he dies.

 _But what about the other people?_ The voice of old guilt is powerful. Dumbledore has spent a lot of time training him how to listen to it. _They won't get to see or hear or feel this, either, as long as Voldemort lives. Should they just give up their lives so_ you _can have what you want? How is that less selfish than the other way around?_

Harry bites his lip and works his hand across his knee. He's had seven years of living in the wizarding world. The children who got killed in the last war with Voldemort usually didn't have even that long. Can't he just go to his death knowing he's doing a good thing and he's had lots of good things in his life?

Then he thinks of something else, something that feels like it's his own. At least, Tom didn't bring it up last night.

 _It's not up to me. Is it? Even if I die, if Dumbledore figures out how to kill me, there's at least six others out there, if Voldemort made seven. I could stand up and take Tom to Dumbledore right now, and that wouldn't kill Voldemort. He's only found the ring. He thinks he has to find at least five other Horcruxes—or four, if he has Tom. It took him years and years of research to uncover me and the ring. What happens if he can't find the others before Voldemort comes back? Or if Voldemort makes more?_

Harry shivers and buries his head in his knees. He's shaking because he _wants_ to believe it so much.

 _I can't end the war. Not by myself. I'm only one of seven. I'm not the Chosen One of prophecy. Dumbledore told me that. He's right. The boy who would have defeated Voldemort died when the Killing Curse hit him. I'm only part of that boy's mangled soul and the Horcrux joined together._

Harry looks up and watches the sun ascend above the clouds. Hagrid is whistling and calling for his dog, Fang, from near the eaves of the Forest, and Fang is barking excitedly at something he's caught.

 _I know what I'll tell Tom._

* * *

Tom melts into Harry's dreams with a sigh. Even with the new memories giving him things to walk through and live for in the diary, it's better to be out of it. Better to be back with the boy he wants to live with.

He feels no shame for the thoughts. He will be living, instead of surviving. He will be achieving something that his elder self never achieved.

That is more than worth it.

This time, although Harry's bed still stands behind them, there are no other beds in the room. There are two chairs facing the fire, which glowers and flickers sullenly. Tom builds it up, and nods to Harry, who sits on the nearest chair.

"I made my decision."

Tom feels as if stone hands have settled on his shoulders. In his entire existence, nothing has been more important than this. "What did you decide?"

Harry breathes out, long and slow. Then he says, "That no one Horcrux is key. Dumbledore doesn't even know how to destroy them yet, even though he keeps researching." Tom notes with immense pleasure that Harry has dropped Dumbledore's title. "He could kill me, and that isn't going to stop Voldemort. He could kill _you_ , and that isn't going to stop Voldemort. And for all we know, Voldemort is going to keep on making new Horcruxes once he gets his body back."

Tom hopes he does. That will destabilize the idiot so much that he won't be able to possess anyone, and that will put him a long step back in recruiting help once his new body is destroyed again. "True, Harry. So that means you'll go with me?"

Harry shakes his head. Tom feels as if the stone hands have clamped him in the chair.

Harry meets his gaze and softens his voice. "I'll help you get a body back and flee. But I'm not going with you, Tom. I need to stay. This is the only world I've really lived in. I have friends here. Dumbledore lied to me about a lot of things, but he showed me things that matter, too. I'm going to stay here and live as long as I can."

 _No_. Tom moves sharply forwards and wraps his arms around Harry before Harry can get out of the chair. Harry gasps and then begins to shiver in response to the thick feeling sweeping through them. This time, it reminds Tom of when he first tasted chocolate.

"You're mine," Tom says, and rests his head against Harry's neck. With the uncanny strength of sensations created by Horcrux touching Horcrux, he's sure the skin there smells and feels exactly like the real thing. "You're coming with me."

"I—that's not possible, Tom. If you're really separate from Voldemort, you should be able to choose your own life. But then I can, too."

"I asked you if you really wanted to die. Do you?"

Harry flinches and tries to pull back from him. But even that stirs wonderful new sparks of sensation, on Tom's cheeks and hands and chin, and Harry seems to lose the will to withdraw quickly enough.

"I think I need to," Harry finally whispers, and doesn't seem to notice the way that makes Tom pull him even closer. "I have my friends, but only a few. I don't have anyone to love or care for me if—Dumbledore only cares how I die. My parents were the only ones who loved me unconditionally. And I already told you about—"

"He's a fool to say that you're not worth loving." Tom pushed his nose further into Harry's hair. "You are. Stay with me."

"That's the Horcrux, though. Other people hate me because of it, and you only like me because of it."

"Does that matter?" Tom moves Harry in a series of gentle shoves and lifts, and then they're back on the bed again. "I don't see how we can ever determine the truth about that. I don't know how _Dumbledore_ determined that it's repulsing people. Did he tell you?"

Harry stares at him. "It's a _Horcrux._ What other proof does he need? Have you forgotten how we're made?"

 _Dumbledore, you fool. You have left him vulnerable._ By telling Harry all the while that no one would love him, or could love him, he has laid the foundations for someone to come along and swoop Harry up simply by loving him. Tom touches Harry's scar, and waits for the sensations to increase to the point where Harry is leaning back on the bed, floating, his breathing rapid and his eyes darting around under his closed lids as if he were dreaming.

"I have not forgotten," Tom whispers into his mouth. "And I have never thought that we deserve to be destroyed for it. We deserve to _live_. Dumbledore is condemning you, an innocent who has at least part of the spirit of that boy whose parents died to save him still in his body." _All of it,_ Tom thinks, but it's not productive to argue about that right now. "If you were really just the Horcrux, you would have argued and fought against him from the beginning, wouldn't you? But part of you was able to listen and still make your own decisions about good and evil. You're innocent, Harry. You're human."

"Then—" Harry is panting, stretching against Tom, rolling his hips in a way that he's still too young to understand. With the steel control that prevents Tom from joining Harry in the flood of pleasure, he holds his own hips away from Harry's body. "Then l-let me make my own decision, Tom. Let me die! Let me stay here and die!"

"No," Tom says. "Not unless you can tell me what you want. What the real you wants, not the part that's a Horcrux." To help Harry make the decision, he pulls his hand back from Harry's scar, even though it feels like ripping his own hair out by the roots.

In truth, he isn't sure that one can actually separate boy and Horcrux in that way. But Harry thinks he can, and Tom's backing off will raise him in Harry's estimation.

Which is what Tom needs to happen. He has a plan for how to get his body back, a ritual that his elder self studied along the way to coming up with the plan for Horcruxes. But it will need Harry's full and willing cooperation.

He even has a plan on how to get away from Hogwarts and keep Dumbledore from coming after them. But that will require more than Harry's cooperation; it will need his decision that his life is worth living.

 _No matter how he came about it._

* * *

Harry shudders and shivers. Only part of it is memory of the pleasure Tom stirred in him. The rest is just—

Doubt.

He hasn't doubted a lot in his life. Dumbledore explained to him how he was special and showed him all the people he could save. He doesn't even have to do something _difficult_ to save them, not like preventing Voldemort from getting the Philosopher's Stone last year or figuring out how to destroy a Horcrux. He just has to die at the right time.

He thought he settled that debate up on the Tower this morning. Let Tom live, and live himself for as long as he can, but then die.

But Tom is promising him something more. Harry knows Voldemort is a liar and a master manipulator, but Tom isn't lying about how much he wants Harry with him. Otherwise, he would just have accepted Harry's offer to help him get a body back.

He hasn't looked away from Harry even now. Harry opens his eyes to check, and there are Tom's, watching him with unwavering calm. Harry quickly shuts his and turns his head away.

He would love Harry. He knows more about the world than Harry does, which means he could take care of them, maybe find a job. Harry doesn't think Tom would abuse him or abandon him.

The smaller, more selfish part of him, that has always envied Ron and Hermione that families even when he was thinking about dying to save them, whispers, _And he doesn't have anyone else that he could go away to on holidays. He just has you. He doesn't care about Voldemort or the other Horcruxes. He'll be with you_ always.

Harry thinks that he shouldn't let that influence his decision. He should be good and strong. He should walk over to Tom and tell him he's sorry, that he'll still help him escape, but he can't live the way Tom wants him to. He should spend the rest of his time alive with his friends and die the way Dumbledore always said he will.

But…

The thing is, _Harry_ does envy his friends. Part of him looked at all those families Dumbledore introduced him to, and said that they shouldn't be able to walk freely down Diagon Alley and eat ice cream and laugh and quarrel as if their quarrels were the most important things in the world. Not if _he_ couldn't.

Harry doesn't know whether that part of him is the Horcrux or not. Like Tom thinks, it's probably impossible to tell. What he _does_ know is that he's going to leave with Tom. He's going to live.

Part of him will probably be upset for a while. But—

A new voice says, maybe from the part of him that is just Harry, _You believe what Dumbledore told you because he's always been right there to whisper the words in your ear. What happens if you live with someone else? You'll believe what Tom tells you. Because he'll be right there._

Harry shudders and wraps his arms around himself. Yes, he will. And he can't bring himself to regret it. Because Tom will also touch him and do—things to him (Harry is vague about what these might be)—and never leave him.

Harry looks up. Tom is still watching him. Harry knows he hasn't looked away once. And even _that_ isn't something he gets with Dumbledore. Dumbledore tends to watch the wall of his office instead of Harry when he talks about Horcruxes and their deaths. He's explained that he can't go too attached to Harry, or he'll never be able to kill him the way he needs to. Harry has always understood.

 _Well,_ he _should understand that I want to be with someone who can stand to look at me._

Harry stands and reaches his hand out. Tom leans down and kisses him, and Harry gasps. It's only for a moment, wet and open-mouthed and hot, and then he's pulling back and stroking Harry's hair and making him feel as if his entire head is eating ice cream.

"Well _done_ , Harry."

Harry stretches slowly in the new praise, trying to convince himself that he _will_ get to feel like this for the rest of his life. It's a strange thing to think, and he knows he'll need some time to get used to it.

On the other hand, Tom doesn't take his hand out of Harry's hair as he starts explaining what they need to do, and that comforts Harry. It means that Tom is going to be right here no matter what.

And even though the things they're going to be doing are Dark and difficult and hard, they don't sound that bad with Tom explaining them to Harry.

* * *

 _Blood of the enemy, willingly sacrificed…_

* * *

"I think I know a way to calm a Horcrux, Professor Dumbledore," Harry says, almost whispering it.

Dumbledore sits up across the desk, and his eyes sparkle in a way that Harry hasn't seen since he found the ring Horcrux. "You do? How wonderful, Harry! But you always were a remarkable boy."

Harry smiles back. He hopes it looks natural. Tom's voice is in his head now, whispering. Tom has managed to ride with him, clinging to Harry's Horcrux magic, instead of only being in dreams, for two days. _Why does he say such things when he only intends to kill you? Because he wants to make you meek and grateful to him, the only one who compliments you. The one who pretends to love you._

Harry breathes softly out. He can't think about that right now. He has to think about the lie he's going to tell Dumbledore, which would never work if not for Tom's magic shielding his mind. Dumbledore is a Legilimens and he can sense lies.

Harry nods. "I _think_ it'll work, sir. But I'm not sure. See, in Potions the other day Ron cut himself a bit with his knife, and he flung up his hand and splattered the blood around. Some got on my scar." Harry leans nearer to Dumbledore's desk and makes his voice as soft and mysterious as he can. "The magic inside the scar was quiet for almost an hour afterwards."

Dumbledore sighs softly. "And you think…?"

"The blood of an innocent, applied directly to the scar, might work." Harry hesitates and bites his lip. "But I don't know if it would destroy it or just quiet it down. And I can't ask Ron or Hermione." For the first time, he's glad that Dumbledore's always insisted he not tell anyone about Horcruxes.

"You want my blood," Dumbledore says. He speaks thoughtfully. "In some ways, I am hardly an innocent, Harry. Not the way your friends are."

"But that makes it better!" Harry says, and he can feel Tom laughing in his head as he widens his eyes innocently. "I mean, that way we can know if it's because you're an innocent, or if the blood of someone who directly fought Voldemort works better."

"You did pay attention to those lessons on magical theory I taught you." Dumbledore says it wistfully, but he is already reaching for a vial that seems to have been under his desk. "How much blood do you need?"

 _Two vials' worth._

"I think two vials should do it, sir. And then I can use it bit by bit, and in varying amounts, to see what more of it does."

Dumbledore gives him the blood with a peaceful smile. Harry takes the vials and nods to him, walking out the office door while wondering if Dumbledore knows the truth and might stop him at any moment.

 _No. He would cage you and_ Obliviate _you the moment he found me in your head._

Harry swallows and nods at the sign of that truth, and then proceeds to the next, more dangerous part of the plan.

* * *

 _Bone of the father, unknowingly given…_

* * *

It's the hardest thing Harry has ever done, leaving Tom's diary among books in demand for the NEWT revisions, where a seventh-year Ravenclaw capable of Apparating can find it, harder than making the decision that he wants to live. Tom gives him a single flare of magic that's like being hugged by a warm wave before he's forced to slip away from Harry and back into the book.

Harry knows what's going to happen. The Ravenclaw will become enchanted and possessed by Tom, and Tom will make him Apparate to the graveyard where his father, the first Tom Riddle, is buried. Then he will harvest the bone dust he needs for the potion.

It's the only way they can accomplish it, Harry knows. He certainly can't ask someone. Dumbledore would never believe that Harry wanted the bone dust from that specific grave as a measure capable of destroying a Horcrux. At the very least, he'd insist that Harry share the potion with him. And Harry can't Apparate, even with Tom's magic curling through him.

It still makes Harry curl up and shiver on the inside, and he doesn't know why until he's lying in bed that night and realizes it.

He misses Tom.

Harry has never missed anyone or anything but his parents before.

* * *

"Harry? Can I talk to you?"

It's not the Ravenclaw who Tom possessed, the only person Harry would really want to see right now. Still, Ginny is standing by his chair in the Great Hall with her eyes bright and fixed on him. He pushes his plate away. "Sure. What is it?"

"In private, please." Ginny bites her lip and glances away towards the door of the Great Hall.

Harry immediately stands up to follow her. If she's figured out that Tom possessed her and that she was the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets, he certainly doesn't want her to say anything with the other students around to hear.

But when they get out into the entrance hall and stop near the stairs that lead down to the Hufflepuff common room, Ginny turns into one massive blush. She places her hand over her face and shudders a little. "This is so hard to say."

Harry blinks at her. Then Ginny abruptly looks up and says, "Harry, I was the one who sent you that singing Valentine. I'm sorry!" she adds. Harry knows his face is darkening, that he can't help himself. "But I really am in love with you, you know. You're so brave and handsome. I won't embarrass you like that again. But I had to say it."

She sucks all the breath into her lungs. Harry just stands there, having no idea what to say. Ginny trembles a little, and whispers, "Do you think you could ever love me back?"

Harry doesn't have to think. He would try to be considerate and gentle most of the time, let her down without making her upset, but now all he can think of is the kiss that Tom pressed to his mouth, and how good it feels when Tom holds him. He shakes his head. "No, sorry, Ginny. I can't." And he turns and walks away towards the Tower, ignoring the way he can hear her feet pounding in the opposite direction.

He gets up to his bedroom, empty with everyone else at dinner, and leans back with his hands folded behind his head, and watches the dust dancing between the red and gold curtains.

He wonders if he's an evil person for not caring about Ginny's feelings.

But honestly, the truth is that he can't care even about that. The only thing he cares about right now is making Tom the potion and then getting away with him, faking his own death. Tom says he has a plan for that, so Dumbledore will assume that Harry is dead and not think of looking for either of them.

Harry closes his eyes. He might as well sleep for a little, since he won't be good for much until Tom gets back.

* * *

The possessed Ravenclaw staggers up to his table in the library the next day, and drops the diary next to Harry's homework. Harry immediately covers it with an essay he's writing for Transfiguration.

It's strange to think that might be the last Transfiguration essay he'll ever write, if Tom's plan works.

But strange or not, the thought flees before the warmth and triumph he feels as Tom rushes back into him. Harry can't help ducking his head. He knows he's blushing, and he doesn't want anyone to wonder why. Then again, Ron is avoiding him right now because he's angry about what Harry said to Ginny, and Hermione is asking Professor McGonagall some questions about this essay.

 _You have it?_

 _Under the diary._

Harry looks. There is a vial like the one Dumbledore gave him, only this one is filled with gleaming white dust and small chips of bone.

 _And now?_

 _The part I'm going to enjoy the most._ Tom purrs at him, and Harry has to close his eyes to keep from crying at how good that feels in his scar. _Because he was nasty to you as much as disloyal to my elder self._

 _Who doesn't matter now._

 _The only thing he matters to me for is that he made sure you existed._

* * *

 _Flesh of the servant, forcibly taken…_

* * *

It's easier than Harry expected to get a detention that Snape wants to supervise personally. Harry only has to make a clumsy motion as if he's trying to steal Potions ingredients from Snape's stores, and Snape instantly pounces on him.

Harry doesn't bother to listen to the attack, only looks at Snape's left arm. Now that he looks for it, he can feel the Dark Mark's magic humming under Snape's sleeve.

 _Isn't it interesting that Dumbledore never told you that Snape served the Dark Lord,_ Tom whispers.

Harry agrees, and waits for the detention with a calm heart.

It's also no problem to sneak in a scalpel—this _did_ get stolen, from the seventh-year Ravenclaw's Potions kit—to the detention. Snape gives him a glare of hatred that's only seeing his father, Harry knows, and snaps, "Get to it, Potter. The cauldrons aren't going to clean out the mess of your idiocy themselves."

Harry nods agreeably and turns towards the cauldrons. He knows it won't be wise to be facing Snape when Tom makes the necessary changes for possessing Harry. For one thing, his eyes are probably going to flash red.

Tom warned him it might be painful. Certainly both Ginny and the Ravenclaw he took control of found it so.

In the moment when Tom surges forwards and takes possession of him, Harry feels as if he's falling asleep in the warmest, most comfortable bed he could imagine.

* * *

Tom stretches himself out slowly, blinking at how small he feels. Then he shakes his head. It's only because of the sensations that he and Harry have shared in the past week that he doesn't immediately get overwhelmed by the lights of the room, the feel of the knife in his right hand, the lingering taste of beef on his tongue.

"Don't shake your head at _me_ , Potter. You have a detention to complete."

Tom smiles and turns around. He's seen a few of Harry's memories concerning how the man treated him. It's both hatred and foolishness—to snap insults at students who are in the midst of delicate brewing processes could make them start or slip or drop undesirable ingredients in the cauldrons—and Tom finds pleasure in punishing both.

 _At least when the hatred is directed at Harry._

Snape glances up at once when Tom pivots around, and stares at him. His hands tighten on the quill and essay he's been marking. Tom smiles at him and says softly, "It'ssss been a long time, Severusss, hassssn't it?" He never knew this man, but what Harry knows of him, and what Dumbledore told Harry of Voldemort's activities, will stand Tom in good enough stead to mimic his elder self.

Snape moves his hand as if he's going for his wand. But Tom is quicker with Harry's wand, their shared, _twinned_ , magic throbbing and filling him with a startling clarity. That power is why he was able to possess Alex Demarch the Ravenclaw instead of waiting for the book to ensnare him, and now he chants, softly, smiling, " _Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus, Incarcerous._ "

Snape is frozen in the chair, roped to it, staring at Tom with his jaw clenched all the while. Tom moves calmly forwards, shaking his head when Harry's short legs stumble. One of his first priorities when they leave will be getting Harry fed up to the point where he's as tall as he should be for twelve.

"I know you look forwardsssss to a chance to sssserve," Tom says, exaggerating the sibilants for effect; Harry has watched a few of Dumbledore's memories of Voldemort in the Pensieve. The scalpel is in his hand in a second.

The ritual his elder self read up on had several differences from this one. For one thing, the servant is supposed to be the willing one, and the potion calls for the sacrifice of a whole limb. But Tom has made several modifications, and he doesn't need to hesitate as he cuts carefully around the Dark Mark on Snape's arm, slicing out the head of the snake.

When he steps back with it, he looks up, and has to laugh. The expression on Snape's face is caught somewhere between hatred, horror, and anger. Tom suspects part of that has to do with the fact that he doesn't know who is really in front of him, Harry Potter or the Dark Lord.

"Enjoy your headache, Severusssss," Tom says, drawing out the final s because he can, and then he casts again, concentrating on the fabricated memory of a Potions accident he will implant in Snape's head to explain the injury to his arm. " _Obliviate_!"

* * *

 _And one more modification. This is the one that will prevent the potion from turning out badly and making me into a monster, Harry._

* * *

Harry sits up in his bed. It's long after midnight, and he knows that the other Gryffindor boys are asleep. Tom's magic stirs behind his scar, holding him and cradling him.

But he's still afraid. This is the most important step of the potion. If they can't get this right—if _he_ can't get this right—then everything is going to be for nothing and Tom can't be free.

 _It will work, Harry. I believe in you._

Tom's warmth hugs him like a harness across his chest. Harry has to smile when he feels it. He lets the smile and the breath go at the same time. "Fawkes!"

The phoenix is in the closed coziness of his bed-curtains with him before he's finished speaking. Harry reaches out and dips his fingers into the shifting red-gold feathers, sighing as Fawkes trills and butts Harry's hand with his head. Fawkes has always liked him, which Harry thought was a bit strange, because phoenixes aren't supposed to like impure things.

But on the other hand, it will come in useful now. If only Fawkes will do as Harry asks.

Harry swallows and asks, "Fawkes, can I have some of your tears?"

The phoenix goes still at once, and his shining seems to dim. He looks up at Harry with one bright eye. Harry knows what he's being asked even though he doesn't really speak the phoenix's language. _What do you want them for?_

The lie he used with Dumbledore won't work here. "I've come up with a way to leave the school forever," he says. "And take the Horcrux with me forever."

Fawkes puts a scarlet claw on Harry's knee. Harry swallows and adds, "I found another Horcrux. We're going to get him a body back. And then we'll leave together. We won't try to resurrect Voldemort. I promise, Fawkes, we _won't._ This is Tom, not Voldemort. He—he loves me. He's the only one who loves _just_ me. I need that."

He shuts up, because he's already said more than he ever meant to say. But Fawkes goes on gazing at him, clad in the shifting colors of fire, and Harry has to whisper, "Dumbledore doesn't love me. He wants me to die."

As he watches, tears slowly form in Fawkes's eyes, and begin to slide down his cheeks. Harry has the vials ready, one for each side, and he catches the tears. Fawkes stands there, silent, on the blanket, and cries for him, and Harry can't help but reach out and tickle the phoenix on the head when he's done.

"It's going to be all right, Fawkes. I promise, it'll be all right."

 _How could Dumbledore doubt your purity, when you reassure even the creature of our enemy this way?_

It seems Fawkes agrees. He flutters up to Harry's shoulder and rubs his head back and forth against Harry's neck. Then he lifts his wings and disappears into a burst of flame with a last strain of melancholy song.

Harry sits there in silence for a while before he stirs and goes to the second-floor girls' bathroom where they're going to begin brewing the potion.

* * *

Brewing is spectacularly easy, even though Tom remains behind Harry's scar and directs the process rather than interfering himself. Harry isn't a genius at Potions, but he does _much_ better without insults snarled into his ear and the panic about looking stupid in front of the Slytherins. Tom watches the potion come together with a smile.

Harry hesitates with the vials of phoenix tears. "Before or after I throw the diary into the potion?" he whispers, even though Tom has already told him many times before.

"One vial before, one after," Tom says, and gently vibrates the grip of his magic around Harry's sternum when he hesitates. "It will be _all right,_ Harry. You will be all right. I promise this."

Harry blinks and grips the vials and nods. "This is just—the most important thing I've ever done," he whispers, and then he tips one container into the potion. Tom watches as the potion, whose surface was bubbling, abruptly quiets and smoothes out into a shining silver surface. He raises his eyebrows—well, he gives Harry the sensation of raised eyebrows—and nods to him inwardly.

 _It is proceeding well._

Harry picks up the diary and holds onto it for a second, caressing the cover. So thoroughly has Tom become bonded, or blended, with Harry that he doesn't feel a thing. But he understands that this is important to Harry, only the outer case for his essence or not. He waits patiently, therefore, and Harry finally lurches forwards and throws the book into the cauldron.

The silver surface closes over it and coats it. For a second Tom can see it bobbing near the surface, and then it vanishes. He sucks in a final breath, and says in what would sound like a whisper even to him, _Now the second vial of phoenix tears, Harry._

Harry nods and pours them in with a steady hand. The last tear clings to the side of the glass as if reluctant to go, but Harry shakes the vial one more time, and in it falls.

Now comes the most difficult part, or at least the part Tom is least certain about. Carefully, he unhooks his mental and magical claws from Harry. _I will rejoin you in a few minutes._

 _Do you_ know _that?_

 _I do._ Tom imagines a hand sliding gently around the edge of Harry's neck, the way he held him when he kissed him. _I promise that I will come back to you._

Harry sighs and releases him. Tom is glad. Without that release, he doubts he could have let go enough to dive.

But he has, and Harry has, and it is done, and Tom sends his mind and magic plunging into the potion.

* * *

Harry falls a step back as the potion begins to bubble more violently than before. Despite what he tries to remember, he doesn't know if Tom told him the potion would do this or not. He digs his fingers into his palms and tries not to shake.

The potion keeps bubbling, and then one bubble rises up and gets longer and longer, dancing on the surface. Harry has to raise a hand to shield his eyes as it begins to shine. The shine is silver, like most of the potion, like the phoenix tears, but it also has a golden heart that makes Harry uneasy.

"Don't be afraid, Harry. I'm with you."

The golden blaze is _speaking_. It travels across the surface of the potion, and pops abruptly. And then Harry can see, and Tom is crouching on the edge of the cauldron, leaping suddenly to the floor. He looks exactly the way he does in Harry's dreams, when they meet in the Gryffindor dorms, even though he's not wearing Slytherin robes.

Except better, because he's _real_.

Harry dashes forwards. Tom actually tips backwards and catches Harry in his arms, laughing. He's naked. Harry finds himself flushing because of that, but he doesn't care, because their skin touches, and—

The strange sensations are redoubled, waving and capering between them like a banner of flame. Harry gasps, Tom gasps into his ear, and then Tom holds him close enough that Harry can almost feel blisters forming on his skin from the heat.

"I would never have left without you," Tom says, and his voice is deep and relentlessly possessive. Harry closes his eyes and lets himself bask in it for long moments. Then he reaches for the robes he brought for Tom to resize, still not letting go.

* * *

Tom's plan to make Dumbledore think Harry has died is, in essence, simple.

He has already taken a pair of the Gryffindor robes Harry will never wear again, and it is a simple matter to venture into the Chamber of Secrets and convince Sanas, the basilisk, to stab them with his fangs. A few cut holes are the most realistic touches, Tom thinks. If Harry had been devoured by the basilisk, it would probably have been after being cut by its fangs; basilisk venom may in fact be one of the few things that can hurt the Horcruxes, and Sanas has always preferred the taste of poisoned prey to that of gaze-killed. Tom has already had Harry write a note about basilisks and the probable entrance to the Chamber of Secrets off the second-floor girls' bathroom, and it will be left in a strategic but not obvious place. The robes themselves, Tom places outside the Chamber entrance, and paints his last message as the Heir of Slytherin on the wall outside the bathroom: HARRY POTTER'S SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER.

Tom did wonder if he should be wary of Dumbledore discovering the supposed ability of basilisks to destroy Horcruxes, but in the end, he dismissed the fear. For one thing, Dumbledore won't find it easy to enter the Chamber to get the venom. For another, he will think Harry is dead, and not be looking for him.

For another, even if Ginny Weasley remembers enough about her time with Tom to confess to Dumbledore, Dumbledore will be looking for a _diary_. Tom is not that. He will never be that again. He is not even sure that he is still a Horcrux.

Except for the sparking, blossoming connection with Harry, the way he holds him in his arms. And he and Harry may be the only two Horcruxes who can love.

"It's done?" Harry whispers as he comes back out of the Chamber.

"Yes," Tom says, and bends down and kisses him again, still delighting in the strength of the connection between them. Harry flushes and pulls away, and Tom lets him go with a smile. So many things can wait, now.

Can wait for a long time. They may, after all, still be immortal.

"Do you have everything you want?" Tom asks, and Harry nods and pats the trunk he dragged into the bathroom earlier. Tom, borrowing Harry's wand, shrinks it for him. They will have to get Tom a new wand, but for now, given how well Harry's works for him, there is no hurry. Harry's wand does not even bear the Trace, since he has been living in Hogwarts for most of his life.

"Hedwig will fly and find us, right?" Harry asks.

Tom smiles down at his upturned face. Harry is going to live and _spite_ Dumbledore, his elder self, his Muggle relatives, and everyone in the entire damn world who didn't care for him enough. "Yes," he says. "Now, come." And he takes Harry's hand and draws them through the corridors, out through the doors for the last time, to the point where he can safely Apparate.

Harry looks around him as they go, eyes touched with sadness as he gazes at the moving staircases and the way to Gryffindor Tower, the gamekeeper's hut and the Forbidden Forest. Once, Tom felt the same way about leaving Hogwarts. But that was when Hogwarts was his home.

Now, his home is where Harry is.

They turn in the darkness on the Hogsmeade road, and Tom permits Harry one last look at the castle, standing proud and quiet against the night sky. Tom himself watches Harry's face, and wraps his arms around him when his lip begins to quiver.

"Afraid you didn't make the right choice?" Tom asks. He doesn't make his voice vulnerable, but his insides churn. He wants, just as much as Harry, to be someone's chosen person.

Harry sighs as if he's trying to shrug off the weight of the world. Then he turns around and meets Tom's eyes, and smiles a little. "No," he says. "I want you. And I want to live."

 _I am his choice._ Tom draws Harry into his arms, holds him close, fixes his destination in mind—

 _Away from my elder self. Away from Dumbledore. Away from war, where we will_ live.

—and Apparates.

The night fills with stars behind them.

 **The End.**


End file.
